With the advent of more robust wireless communications systems, compatible handheld communication devices are becoming more prevalent, as well as advanced. Where in the past such handheld communication devices typically accommodated either voice transmission (cell phones) or text transmission (pagers and PDAs), today's consumer often demands a combination device capable of performing both types of transmissions, including even sending and receiving e-mail. Furthermore, these higher-performance devices can also be capable of sending and receiving other types of data including that which allows the viewing and use of Internet websites. These higher level functionalities necessarily require greater user interaction with the devices through included user interfaces (UIs) which may have originally been designed to accommodate making and receiving telephone calls and sending messages over a related Short Messaging Service (SMS). As might be expected, suppliers of such mobile communication devices and the related service providers are anxious to meet these customer requirements, but the demands of these more advanced functionalities have in many circumstances rendered the traditional user interfaces unsatisfactory, a situation that has caused designers to have to improve the UIs through which users input information and control these sophisticated operations.
A primary focus of the present disclosure is enhanced usability of today's more sophisticated wireless handheld communication devices 300 taking into account the necessary busyness of the front face real estate of these more compact devices that incorporate additional user interfaces.
Many keyboards on mobile devices have an input device for navigation through the graphical user interface. These interfaces can be used to affect movement of a cursor or pointer, or to scroll up, down and about a displayed page. These navigation devices often occupy a relatively large amount of space on the incorporating mobile device. Because the navigation device is frequently used and often requires fine control, a lower end size limitation will normally be observed by device designers.
Another precept in handheld keyboard design is maintaining familiarity; by this it is meant that when possible familiar key layouts are maintained and integrated into new designs thereby encouraging ready acceptance by the consumer. In this same vein, it is important to keep new keyboards visually simple; that is visually segregating keys, when possible, based on their functionality or user group membership. One example is the presentation of a traditional telephone keypad when telephony functions are embodied in the handheld device so that the user is immediately comfortable with the product.
Another keyboard spacing problem is that of finger overlap when keys are smaller than the user's finger and are spaced closely together. Because keys near the center of the keyboard are surrounded by other keys, they are particularly more difficult to press without the user's finger overlapping and inadvertently pressing an adjacent key.
Accordingly, as the demand for small-screen devices capable of running increasingly complex applications continues to grow, the need exists for a way to implement user control interface menus that overcome the various disadvantages with conventional dropdown-style hierarchical menus.